


A Call For Faith

by cybel



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-29 05:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17801504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybel/pseuds/cybel
Summary: "...You call for faith:I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,If faith o'ercomes doubt."Bishop Blougram's ApologyRobert Browning





	A Call For Faith

**Author's Note:**

> The original version of this story was printed in the multi-fandom slash fanzine _Playfellows 2_ (1992), published by Merry Men Press. The zine's Fanlore page can be found [here](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Playfellows). Please note that this Fanlore page contains NSFW images.

A gentle breeze wafted through the open-air nightclub, teasing at the grass skirt of the lovely woman dancing the Tahitian hula on the small stage near their table. Napoleon had been focused solely on her since her performance began, and she in turn was sending him interested smiles and come-hither glances.

Illya watched the byplay with barely concealed annoyance. He took a final sip of the fruity, frothy concoction that his partner had cajoled him into ordering and wiped his pursed lips on a cocktail napkin. "I am going for a walk on the beach," he said to Napoleon's rapt profile, "and then to bed. I will see you in the morning."

"Umm," the other man answered vaguely, gaze never leaving the rapidly oscillating hips of the dancer.

The residue of the sweet drink Illya had Just finished suddenly tasted bitter in his mouth. A cup of coffee would have rinsed it away, but Illya could not bear the Idea of waving down a waitress and continuing to feign disinterest as Napoleon carried on yet another casual seduction in front of him. Napoleon was on the prowl tonight, and now that his prey was in his sights the Russian might as well have been on the moon for all the attention he was likely to get from his partner.

Rising with a small sigh, Illya turned his back on Napoleon and his soon-to-be latest conquest and headed for the exit. The music ended in a burst of applause just as he swung lithely off the platform floor of Queen's Surf Nightclub into the warm sand, slowly heading toward the water's edge. The beach was dark after the bright lights of the club, and the flickering reflections of the moon and stars on the surface of the water seemed insubstantial and fey, fairy lights sent to beckon the unwary off the safe path. 

"Illya?"

The Russian tensed at the familiar voice close behind him but continued walking. "I've never felt comfortable in the tropics," he said apropos of nothing. "Cold climates are more to my taste. They are more invigorating, more challenging. Here one can eat from the trees, bathe in the ocean, sleep on the beach. A man could get soft here, could lose his edge."

"Always the ascetic," Napoleon chuckled affectionately, catching up and falling into step with his partner. "You should have been a monk, Illya. Hair coats and self-flagellation. Maybe then you would have been happy."

"Happy?" Illya strove unsuccessfully to keep his voice light. "Happiness is an overrated commodity." He ran a hand through his hair. "Why did you follow me, Napoleon? I'm surprised that you were even aware I had left the club. You were occupied at the time."

"Sorry about that."

"Why should you be sorry? She was lovely. You wanted her, and she wanted you. What is there to be sorry about."

"I didn't!" Napoleon objected then stopped to take a deep breath. He began again. "I was ignoring you. It was rude of me."

Illya waved an impatient hand. "It was typical of you," he corrected. "I have come to expect it."

"That's not true, and you know it." Napoleon tilted his head to the side and looked at Illya intently. "Why are you angry at me," he asked. "You know I would never even have noticed her if you hadn't refused me. Again."

Without a word Illya turned away from the shoreline and headed toward Diamond Head, Napoleon following along beside him. After several minutes, with the lights and the noise of Waikiki and Queen's Surf far behind them, the Russian finally shook his head and continued their interrupted conversation. "I am not angry, Napoleon. You have a right to flirt with whomever you choose. It is of no interest to me."

Napoleon's voice held a hint of reproach as he said, "We've been friends too long for you to start lying to me now."

Illya rounded on him. "You think you know me so well then?" he asked, voice tight with fury. "You know what I am feeling better than I do myself? You are an arrogant bastard, Napoleon. A self-centered, overbearing, supercilious bastard."

"Perhaps," Napoleon murmured, apparently unperturbed by Illya's outburst. "But you love me anyway."

The Russian made a strangled sound that might have been rage or frustration but that ended, strangely, in a resigned sigh. "Yes," he agreed, surprising them both. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"Ah," Napoleon murmured as if to himself, "progress at last. But you don't want to love me, Illya, do you? And therein, as the Bard would say, lies the rub."

A flash of white betrayed Illya's fleeting, smile. "As always, you misquote Shakespeare abominably."

"Perhaps, but at least I know enough about his work to know that, like Hamlet, you think too much." Napoleon's fingers, gentle as his voice, traced the shadowed line of Illya's stubborn chin.

"Whereas you don't think at all!" Illya snapped, blue eyes flashing in the cool glow of the moon. "Think! Think with your head for once and not with your balls. I am a man, your partner, your friend. I will not be another of your casual conquests, like that dancer back there and all the others before her. If I come to your bed, I come on _my_ terms, not yours, and my terms include fidelity and commitment, two words that have never been in your vocabulary.

"Think about that, Napoleon. Think about never having another woman in your bed, about never having a wife, never having children." His impassioned speech ended in a dull monotone. "Think about having only _me_. Forever."

Napoleon shook his head, the movement loosening a lock of dark hair that fell forward onto his high forehead. He looked open, vulnerable. Not like himself at all, Illya thought. He looked away before his resolve could waver.

"You think I haven't thought about those things?" Napoleon asked at last. "Haven't thought about _us_? Well you're wrong, Illya. I haven't thought about much else lately. I've thought about everything you mentioned and more. Yes, I've been with women since I realized how I feel about you, but every time I sleep with a woman now I think about you, think about how I want to make love with you. As for a wife, kids—those are not in the cards for me, never have been." His voice was deep, resonant, sincere. "I want _you_ , Illya, only you. On your terms. Forever. I love you."

Napoleon took a step closer but did not attempt to touch Illya. Even so, Illya could feel the body heat radiating toward him like a lover's caress, and incongruously he shivered even as his pulse quickened and tongues of flame sped along his nerves. With an incoherent growl he closed the gap between them, molding their bodies together, claiming Napoleon's eager mouth with a hunger that exceeded any other he had ever known. He exulted in it, reveled in it.

Then reason reasserted itself. _Think_. His own words echoed through his sensation dulled brain. _Think with your head, not with your balls_." Illya broke the kiss. "No!"

"Yes," Napoleon murmured against his ear, drawing Illya close again, gently nuzzling the soft skin of his neck. "Oh, yes, yes."

"I said _no_ , damn you!" Illya pulled out of Napoleon's embrace, retreating until he felt the rough solidity of a palm tree at his back. Leaning against it, he struggled to regain his composure.

Napoleon, lacking any such physical support, stood swaying slightly where Illya had left him. "Did I miss something?" he asked with bitter irony. "The way I recall it, _you_ jumped _me_ just now, not the other way around, so what's with the frightened virgin act?"

"That is beneath you, Napoleon," Illya answered, defeated rather than angry.

Moving close enough for Illya to feel a warm gust of air with each word, Napoleon asked gently, "What is it, tovarich? You already admitted you love me. Hell, even if you hadn't said so, you just showed me clearly enough how you feel."

"Please, Napoleon. Please." Illya leaned his head back against the tree and shut his eyes tightly.

"Please what? Please go away and leave you alone? Please don't ask what's bothering you? Or please hold you," strong arms closed around him, "please kiss you," warm lips brushed his eyelids, "please make love to you?"

Napoleon fell silent as he pressed their bodies together, hands and lips eagerly exploring until Illya's breath caught on a moan of unbearable pleasure. Once again he took the initiative, pulling at Napoleon's immaculate evening clothes until flesh was free to move against heated flesh.

It was over in a moment, and they sank to the sand to lie panting in a mass of tangled limbs. As soon as he regained control, however, Illya twisted away and sat up, resting bent arms on his knees and staring out across the water.

"That didn't change anything, did it?" Napoleon sighed.

Illya didn't dare to look at the other man. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Napoleon moved closer, "That's not good enough, love."

Illya winced at the easy endearment that Napoleon hardly seemed to notice uttering.

"I'll back off if I have to," the American continued, "if that's the only way I can keep you as my friend and partner, but you're going to have to explain to me why we can't have more. Don't you think I deserve that much?"

When Illya didn't answer, Napoleon laid a hand on his bare shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. "Tell me," he insisted.

Illya tensed under Napoleon's encouraging hand. "You won't understand," he said helplessly. "I'm not sure I understand myself."

Napoleon's hand tightened. "Tell me," he repeated.

Looking dully down at his own clasped hands, Illya said, in an apparent non sequitur, "When I was seven, my parents sold me to a rich couple in Kiev who could not have children of their own."

He paused at Napoleon's shocked inhalation, finally meeting the other man's eyes. "It was not such a terrible thing, Napoleon. After the war there was no food, no work, and I was just another mouth to feed. I am sure my parents did what they thought was best. If they had not done something, we all would have starved that winter. Instead, I was well provided for, and the money they were given gave the rest of them a chance to survive as well."

"And did they survive?"

"I don't know. I never saw or heard from them again." The pain of that was an open wound that would never heal.

"Why were you the one chosen?" Napoleon asked when the Russian fell silent.

Illya shrugged. "I was the youngest and the only boy. The people who bought me wanted an heir, you see. Someone to carry on their family name and business. In the end, I was quite a disappointment to them."

"I'm so sorry, Illya, so sorry that happened to you," he murmured. 

"Don't be; there is no need. In time I learned to accept what I could not, in any event, have changed. We Russians, as you are so fond of reminding me, are a pragmatic people." Only Illya's troubled eyes belied the truth of this assertion. "My new parents were kind to me, and in time I grew to love them."

"But they didn't love you," Napoleon said with sudden insight.

Illya winced. "No, they did not love me."

"Has anyone you loved ever loved you in return, Illya?"

Illya closed his hand over a fistful of sand, but it trickled through his fingers, leaving him with nothing to hold on to. "No," he answered. "No one."

"I see."

Napoleon's hand, which had continued to drift over Illya's bare skin throughout their conversation, withdrew, leaving Illya mourning its loss.

"And what about me?" the American asked, the barest hint of reproach in his voice. "Don't you believe that I love you?"

"No, I do not. I can not."

It was Napoleon's turn to stare out over the water, unable to meet the tortured honesty of Illya's gaze. "And just when," he asked at last, his voice strained, "did you first realize that you can't trust me?"

"I _do_ trust you, Napoleon," Illya denied quickly. "I trust you with my life!"

"But not with your love."

Illya made a frustrated sound deep in his throat. "Don't you see? It is myself I do not trust. I do not trust myself to be worthy of your love. I do not trust myself to be able to keep your love. How could I bear to have you and then have to let you go?"

Napoleons expression became thoughtful. "But you do have me," he said. "Have had me." He indicated the state of their sticky, sandy bodies. "Can you let me go now?"

"What do you mean?" Illya's whole body radiated confusion.

"I mean, if you don't want us to be lovers, just say so. Say so now, and I'll go and never approach you that way again. I'll go back to that club and find that little dancer and—Oof!"

The breath whooshed from Napoleon's lungs as Illya's nude body hit him, bearing him down into the sand. "You will _not_ go back to her," the Russian hissed through clenched teeth. "You are mine, do you hear me? Mine!"

Napoleon smiled up at him, smug and victorious, but he answered meekly, "Yes, Illya. Whatever you say." Then Illya's mouth closed over his, and anything else he might have said was set aside in favor of a more ancient, more intimate form of communication.

 

"No more doubts?" Napoleon murmured some time later as Illya lay in his arms beneath the swaying palms.

Illya shrugged. "None that I cannot learn to live with, I think. It will be easier to live with them than to continue living without you."

"Russian pragmatism again." 

"Perhaps. Or perhaps I just have faith in you after all."

They continued to lie together for a long while, the rise and fall of their chests echoing the gentle lapping of the waves against the shore.


End file.
